In medical image diagnosis, various image diagnostic apparatuses (to be also referred to as modalities hereinafter) are used, including an X-ray CT (Computed Tomography) apparatus, ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) apparatus, X-ray CT angiographic apparatus, and SPECT/PET apparatus in accordance with diagnostic purposes.
In general, a plurality of types of image data captured by a plurality of modalities (to be also referred to as multimodalities hereinafter) are transmitted to, for example, an image observation apparatus in a PACS (Picture Archiving and Communication System). The image observation apparatus incorporates in advance an image viewer for displaying image data. Upon receiving image data, the image observation apparatus displays the received imaged data on a screen of a monitor. In this case, the image observation apparatus is preferably capable of simultaneously displaying a plurality of types of image data on a screen to allow the operator to comprehensively observe a morphological image and a functional image or comparatively observe a past study image and a current study image.
For this reason, there is recently available an image observation apparatus incorporating an image viewer having a multimodality function capable of simultaneously displaying a plurality of types of image data on a screen. This image observation apparatus divides an image display area on the monitor capable of displaying image data into a plurality of areas and displays a plurality of types of image data in the respective areas. The operator can arbitrarily select image data to be displayed in each area while referring to an image list. In this case, the image list is a list of all image data received by the image observation apparatus. This list is displayed on a screen when the operator selects image data to be displayed in each area.
According to the above image observation apparatus, however, since an image list is a list of all image data received by the image observation apparatus, it takes time for the operator to select desired image data from the image list, resulting in inefficiency.